Editorials
David Cronenberg’s ‘Crash’ – An Unconventional Erotic Thriller/Slasher
On the surface, David Cronenberg’s 1996 adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash is a drama about an unlikely group of people who come together over their shared fascination with car crashes.
The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of Ballard’s proxy, James Ballard. He’s a successful film producer in an open marriage to wife Catherine; both partners routinely engage in casual sex with co-workers and strangers alike, seemingly in pursuit of upending their relationship ennui.
The sex, which is captured by Ballard in incredibly specific and laborious prose, is cold, dispassionate, and almost clinical. The novel is often described as a work of science-fiction; despite containing virtually none of the tropes of the genre, Crash reads like a warning of a dystopian future in which citizens have become so desensitized that they will be pushed to pursue more and more extreme outlets in order to feel something.
That something, as both readers and viewers of the film will know, is car crashes.
Considering how confronting and racy the book is, the David Cronenberg film adaptation of Crash is something of a marvel. Ballard’s book was long thought impossible to adapt and the movie, which features lines of dialogue lifted straight from the novel, as well as copious amounts of sex and nudity (much of it fetishistic and queer) is provocative, confronting and even a little dangerous. In case the divisive nature of the movie isn’t clear, when it debuted at Cannes, Crash provoked both walk-outs, as well as a special Jury prize for its audacity.
James Spader stars as James Ballard in the film version, while Deborah Kara Unger plays his wife Catherine. The film opens with both engaging in extra marital affairs (his at work on set, hers at an airplane hangar – a carry-over from her flight lessons in the book). That night on the open terrace of their luxury Toronto high rise, they take turns talking about their trysts in order to stimulate each other. Their oft-repeated line “Maybe next time” is verbal evidence of a disaffected sex life and lack of connection to one another.
Things change when James distractedly causes a head-on collision that kills another man. Not only does this event shift him into the orbit of the dead man’s wife, Dr Helen Remington (Holly Hunter), but it puts him on the radar of badly scarred car crash enthusiast Vaughan (Elias Koteas).
While the film definitely focuses principally on character (and sex)-driven sequences, under closer consideration, it’s clear that Vaughan is something of a cult leader. He has amassed a collective of acolytes who hang on his every word; these are individuals who have become so enamored by his obsession that they effectively abandon their own lives in order to sleep with each other and study Vaughan’s archival collection of car wrecks.
In the clearest evidence of Vaughan’s cult of personality, his dear “friend” Seagrave (Peter MacNeil), whom Vaughan encourages to drive in simulations despite successive concussions, eventually dies in a manufactured recreation of Jayne Mansfield’s death. In the virtuoso sequences, Ballard, Catherine and Vaughan survey the massive traffic jam and the plethora of injuries caused by Seagrave’s crash, but Vaughan’s only response upon seeing his friend’s body is bemoaning the fact that Seagrave didn’t wait for him. This is a man unafraid to embolden his followers to commit acts of violence, who can’t even feign sadness at their passing when they inevitably perish in the resulting destruction.
Throughout the film, Vaughan is clearly a dark shadow figure lurking over the narrative. He exhibits classic stalker behaviour: disguising his identity in order to conduct surveys and take pictures of crash survivors like Helen and Ballard. He also voyeuristically photographs them (and others) having sex, and he frequently tails them in his giant black car.
Not unlike a horror villain’s tool of choice, the car acts as both an extension of Vaughan, as well as a weapon with which to terrorize and pursue his victims. As the film progresses and the relationships begin to intensify, Vaughan appears to lose interest in his former crew so that he can focus on Ballard and Catherine, whom he repeatedly engages with via vehicular contact, as well as sexual dominance.
Vaughan frequently chases the couple with his car, particularly Catherine, who is the final member of the ensemble who has not been in an accident. Not unlike a slasher villain, Vaughan stalks his prey, hanging back in his car to draw out the chase before jerking forward and startling, or even rear ending, them. The relationship between the cars’ physical contact and human appendages isn’t difficult to discern: like a car-obsessed version of Jigsaw, Vaughan figuratively and literally rams into Ballard and Catherine with his oversized appendage in order to make the couple feel something, to make them feel alive.
This idea comes full circle at film’s end. After repeatedly trying to indoctrinate Ballard and Catherine into his group, Vaughan makes one final (suicidal) attempt, his car flying over the guard rails and crashing into a bus on the freeway below. Not only does his end reinforce the film’s nihilistic interest in equating car crashes with sexual intercourse and death, Vaughan’s passing effectively promotes Ballard to become his successor.
In the film’s final moments, Ballard literally replicates Vaughan’s actions, chasing down his wife in his own oversized car and instigating a car accident before initiating sex with her on the side of the road. The fact that they repeat the same line of dialogue from the start of the film (“Maybe next time”), suggests that the crash wasn’t entirely successful in reigniting their relationship and that they will continue to rely on Vaughan’s habit of using of car crashes to incite interpersonal connectivity.
Despite its lack of traditional genre conventions, David Cronenberg’s Crash absolutely contains elements of both slasher films and erotic thrillers. The intersection of sex and death, Vaughan’s ability to steer and manipulate the narrative, as well as how he uses his car like a weapon, all feel very horror inspired. Crash may be an unconventional example of the subgenre, but we should expect nothing less from a master like David Cronenberg.
Sex Crimes is a column that explores the legacy of erotic thrillers.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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